Tag Archives: Anna Karenina

Thank God for conductor John Wilson and the BBC SSO. Without them, fans of the great Bernard Herrmann would not have had the chance to be immersed for 24 hours in some of the most iconic, haunting and emotive music ever written for film – and to hear some of it played live for the first time in Glasgow.

The Herrmann weekend kicked off on Saturday evening with a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho with Herrmann’s classic score being played live by the orchestra. Despite a technical hitch near the beginning, this was a hugely enjoyable experience – on several levels. It was a treat to see the film on the big screen and in the company of others, rather than home alone on a TV, and it was a thrill to hear the music up close and being performed by the dynamic strings of the SSO. Indeed, at points it was difficult to stay focused on the screen, so animated were the musicians.

The murder scenes may not have the same impact now as they did on first viewing, but what the slightly disjointed effect of having the film music played live highlighted was how much of the work in the iconic shower scene was done by those shrieking strings. This was further underlined on Sunday afternoon when the orchestra played the Psycho music in a concert setting: all the contact between knife and skin is in the music (you never see it), and this music stands up all by itself.

Although the sell-out Psycho Live performance was obviously considered the hotter ticket, the Sunday afternoon concert turned out to be the more satisfying, since it allowed the audience to focus entirely on the music. No film composer evokes the windmills of troubled minds or gets under the skin like Herrmann, and this concert – again featuring sensational playing, this time by the whole orchestra – was exhilarating from start to finish, with the almost unbearably beautiful and electrifying Vertigo music the most breath-taking five minutes of the weekend.

Other highlights included the swoonsomely sumptuous Marnie opening titles, the rousing overture from North by Northwest and a handful of suites by other film composers, including David Raksin (whose Laura music should be played more often) and Constant Lambert, whose Anna Karenina score revealed similarities with Herrmann’s work.

Only complaint? A complementary season of films at the GFT wouldn’t have gone amiss – and might have helped satisfy the withdrawal symptoms inevitable after this glorious Bernard Herrmann binge.